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Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Covering up Trump’s dealings with Michael Flynn & Turkey

April 3, 2017

Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Ca. Photo by Jesse Lintl (flickr)
By Allan Dodds Frank
Forget about the Russian investigation. It is the White House
cover-up of former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s criminal
behavior that merits the full attention of the press, Congress and law
enforcement.

The Flynn cover-up apparently was in full swing at the White House
when Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Ca., brought his clown act to 1600 Pennsylvania
Avenue to sprinkle the press with red herrings about surveillance of
Trump Tower.

Ezra Cohen-Watnick, a 30-year-old who worked with Gen. Flynn at the
Defense Intelligence Agency and was brought by him to the National
Security Council as a “Senior Director for Intelligence Programs”, has
now been identified by the New York Times as one of Nunes’s two sources inside the White House.

This is the same man who President Trump saved – after appeals from
Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner – from being dismissed by his direct
boss, National Security Advisor Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster. The CIA also had
been pushing for Cohen-Watnick’s ouster, according to a March 14 story from Politico.

Soon, it should be clear that there was only one reason Cohen-Watnick
was combing through classified intelligence about Trump Tower
surveillance. He undoubtedly was scouring the intelligence to see what
evidence the government “collected incidentally” about Flynn’s illegal
lobbying for Turkey. Part of that surveillance may also have covered any
efforts by Flynn to influence Trump – or his Attorney General in
waiting – Senator Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.

The Flynn Intel Group’s belated registration as a Foreign Agent for
Turkey revealed that his real purpose was trying to convince the U.S.
government to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric in exile in
Pennsylvania, to satisfy demands from Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
Flynn, who got a $600,000 contract from his Turkish patron,
reportedly also discussed with senior Turkish government officials the
possibility of spiriting Gulen out of the country without proper
extradition proceedings.

That bit of news was reported by the Wall Street Journal,
which quoted former CIA Director James Woolsey, a Trump supporter and
Flynn Intel Group associate, who was at the meeting between Flynn and
Turkish government officials. Woolsey was appalled by what amounted to a
discussion of a potential kidnapping. Through his spokesman, Flynn has
denied discussing “any illegal actions, nonjudicial physical removal or
any other such activities.”Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, head of Defense Intelligence Agency. Dept of Defense photo by Erin A. Kirk-Cuomo (2012)

So who do you believe? A former CIA Director or a rogue general who
was fired as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency by President Obama
and fired as National Security Advisor by President Trump three weeks
after being appointed and before disclosing his need to register as a
foreign agent for Turkey.

There also may have been some intercepts involving Flynn trying to
discuss extraditing Gulen with Rex Tillerson or other candidates for
Trump’s Secretary of State. According to wire reports, the Turkish
Foreign Secretary raised the extradition matter with Tillerson this week
and apparently complained about the federal criminal charges lodged
recently in New York against the high-ranking Turkish banker. That
defendant just happened to have added Trump confidante Rudolph Giuliani
to his defense team.

The other possibility is that the surveillance also detected
information relating to the Trump Organization’s business dealings in
Turkey.
Given what the U.S. government already knew about Russian interference
in the U.S. election, it would have been a huge abandonment of duty if
U.S. intelligence agencies had failed to cover what was going on between
foreign governments and the Trump campaign and its intelligence advisor
Lt. Gen. Flynn.

About Me

Allan Dodds Frank is an Emmy and Gerald Loeb Award winner for his financial investigative reporting. Formerly President of the Overseas Press Club of America, he has covered business as a television and radio Correspondent for Bloomberg, CNN, ABC News and as a senior editor for Forbes.
For more information visit:
http://www.AllanDoddsFrank.com